We are delighted to present Miranda Parkes' first solo exhibition in Wellington .

Her exhibition zoomer brings together works made on, and in response to, various substrates. Paint has primacy and colour is the star and is foregrounded - here glorious fluro colours, golds and silvers are applied to timber pallets, book pages, Perspex and found materials. With not a stretched flat canvas in sight, the artist talks to painting as a discipline - exploring and dismantling its histories, its motifs and its objectness - the title, zoomer, also a playful reference to the human need to create periods, categorise and historicise.

Twenty small paintings made on pages from an old book are central to zoomer and were the starting point for the show. Parkes began the these during the lockdown, when, unable to go to her studio, she had to work at her kitchen table. As these are made in response to each page from a book about French painting, the pallet works are made in response to the 'typography' of this relief object's surface.

In zoomer she plays with depth, layering, surface and substrate disrupting conventions to deliver on her intention to offer viewers "a clear-minded, joyful and reflective space."

Parkes joins the gallery with an impressive pedigree: more than 20 solo exhibitions, over 50 group exhibitions and numerous awards and residencies including the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, the Olivia Spencer Bower Award, a Tylee Cottage artist residency and the William Hodges Fellowship.

!!!